Re: Experiences with Lout

[Pierre]

> 
> > - I personally think the Plain and PDF export is useless and can be
> >   dropped.  Both work only very limited and there are tools
> >   available to convert from PS to PDF to TXT and back.
> 
> Isn't it a bit rash to dismiss a feature that you don't use as
> universally useless?
> 
> I personally find plain text extremely useful for debugging
> definitions or doing a quick test (lout -p -s | cat -s).
> 
> Other people find PDF useful because when you need to generate simple
> PDFs well within limitations of the pdf backend, you save time/space
> on not having ghostscript around.


I for one mostly use the ps output, but I think the -p output is just
plain necessary (for generating, well, text output. Text is neat. Text
is universal. Text is needed).
I also think that the -Z option should be kept, pretty much as is. It
doesn't make Lout much heavier, and it is useful for basic doc
generation. 
I do like lout's most advanced features, but I also used to use Todd
Coram's AFT quite extensively, and the -p and -Z options are needed
AFAIC. Or I could just keep using AFT for "simple" output, but that
means re-writing stuff. Re-writing is bad, m'kay*?

Cheers

-- 
P

* I still like Todd's AFT, as a VERY lightweight solution for simple
stuff. Try it, you'll love it.